Zamindar Papa Rao resides with his shrew wife Kantamma, that ill-treats her mother-in-law Parvatamma, and they have two children, Suryam & Saroja.
In their village, Papa Rao's sibling, Seeta, lives with her peasant husband, Rangaiah, and the couple has a son, Chandra Shekar.
He borrowed only one tune from the Bengali film's composer Anupam Ghatak, for the song "Penu Cheekataye Lokam" from its original version "Ke Tumi Amare Dako".
[1] Bhavanarayana, producer of Meghasandesham suggested to Dukkipati Madhusudhana Rao to watch the Bengali film Agni Pariksha (1954).
One of the major changes the maker brought in was while in the original version the girl's father dies of shock, in Mangalya Balam, his character was retained till the last frame.
The Tamil version Manjal Mahimai was simultaneously made retaining all the leading actors and technicians with two changes to the cast – K. A. Thangavelu and K. Balaji replacing Relangi and Ramanamurthy respectively.
[1] Mangalya Balam was released on 7 January 1959 and for the first time in the history of Telugu cinema, the hundred days function was held in an open arena, the Municipal High School grounds, Vijayawada with thousands of cine-fans participating and presided over by the then Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, Kasu Brahmananda Reddy.